Cuomo’s ‘Revenue Extenders’

Gov. Andrew Cuomo is not proposing any new taxes in his budget, but he is proposing a series of “revenue extenders” in order to plug a $1.34 billion deficit.

Cuomo wants to extend the high-income charitable contribution deduction limitation for three years.

He wants to extend a temporary utility assessment on electric gas, water and stream utilities for five years.

He proposed extending the MTA Business Tax surcharge for five years.

And he wants to make the waste tire fee of $2.50, which generates $24 million a year, permanent.

The $142.6 billion budget also includes making permanent pari-mutuel tax rates permanent, which have been re-authorized every year.

Now these taxes likely won’t hit a broad swath of the state’s populace, and compared to prior budget years, the deficit is a relatively small gap.

But Cuomo has been averse to extending taxes in the past, most notably the so-called “millionaires tax” on those who make more than $200,000 a year.

Cuomo in early 2011 said he considered extending the tax into the next calendar year a tax increase and vowed not to do it.

In the end, Cuomo engineered a revamping of the state’s tax code that cut rates for most middle-income earners, and gave higher earners slightly less of a cut than they were in line to receive. Nevertheless, the move cut sharply into the projected budget deficit for the 2012-13 fiscal year and made everyone — from Cuomo to Republican and Democratic lawmakers in the Legislature — safe from the debate over the millionaires tax.